Spaceflight Insider

NASA's Cassini spacecraft, now conducting its final orbits between Saturn and its rings, is plunging further than ever into the giant planet's atmosphere. Over the last 13 years studying the Saturn system, the spacecraft has discovered a wealth of information about the planet's rings.

It never fails: Let the news cycle get a little slow and someone decides to get creative with the facts. Such was the case on Wednesday, Aug. 1, when supposedly credible and professional sites such as USA Today and Newsweek dropped the ball and resorted to good ole fashioned clickbait-ing. It was a sign of the times that highlighted the current state of journalism in the U.S.

After twenty years in space and thirteen years directly observing Saturn and its system of hypnotic rings and moons, the Cassini spacecraft is continuing to tease out tantalizing data from the mysterious ringed beauty about every six days.

NASA's Cassini orbiter has captured a distant view of the mysterious jets emanating from the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus, a world that likely harbors a subsurface ocean. The jets are believed to be liquid water being vented from the ocean underneath the moon's icy crust.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft is currently completing its fifth ring-grazing orbit of Saturn as it conducts its Grand Finale nearing the end of its mission. It will reach its orbital apoapsis on May 25 at 08:50 UTC (4:50 a.m. EDT), at which point its sixth ring-grazing orbit will begin. The sixth ring crossing of the Grand Finale will occur on May 28 at 14:22 UTC (10:22 a.m. EDT).

A visible-light image of Saturn and one side of its rings taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on February 3, 2017, shows the planet's shrinking shadow on the rings as it approaches its May 2017 solstice.

Based on data collected on the first of the Cassini spacecraft's planned 22 "Grand Finale" orbits, the area between the cloud tops of Saturn and the inner-most ring seems to be mostly dust-free. Instead of the heavy distribution of dust particles Cassini had detected when it made its ring grazing orbits in late 2016, the spacecraft instead revealed a “big empty."

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has successfully completed the first of its 22 Grand Finale dives between Saturn and its rings, sending back images and data after more than 20 hours of being out of contact with Earth.

NASA's Cassini orbiter conducted its last and closest flyby of Saturn's large moon Titan in the early morning hours of April 22, 2017, putting it on course for the mission's Grand Finale of 22 orbits between the innermost rings and the giant planet.

As NASA's Cassini spacecraft moves toward its Grand Finale, it will conduct its final and closest flyby of Saturn's moon Titan on April 22, 2017. This last visit is a targeted flyby, meaning Cassini will use either its rocket engine or thrusters to alter its course.

New data obtained by NASA's Cassini mission and by the Hubble Space Telescope indicate Saturn's moon Enceladus and Jupiter's moon Europa, both referred to as ocean worlds because they harbor subsurface oceans, could be habitable for microbial life.

Using data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn and the Hubble Space Telescope around Earth, scientists have determined that the ringed planet's moon Enceladus, which has a global ocean under its icy surface, has a source of chemical energy – an ingredient for life.

On Wednesday, April 26, 2017, NASA's Cassini spacecraft will conduct the first in a series of 22 dives between Saturn's atmosphere and the gas giant's rings as a part of the mission's “grand finale”. It will conclude a mission that has spent almost 13 years exploring the Saturnian system.